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Why wouldn't they try and discredit the US?

Not only bizarre, but an insight into the "thinking" of those incarcerating the detainees at Gitmo indefinitely, many without any charges having been levelled against them. It is claimed the detainees protesting, and trying to get their message out there, are attempting to discredit the USA. Er, why wouldn't they want to? Al Jazeera reports - following obtaining documents in a FOI application.

"Guantánamo Bay military personnel have been instructed to inform visitors to the prison facility that the vast majority of detainees held there more than a decade without facing charges use their lawyers and the media to “discredit the U.S. government,” according to PowerPoint slides obtained by Al Jazeera.

The slides also advise military personnel to cast the ongoing hunger strikes waged by the prisoners not as a form of protest against their indefinite detention and treatment, but as one of six “offensive tactics” used by detainees to attack the U.S. government.

The presentation accuses the detainees of engaging in “Information Operations” that include using “media, lawyers and int’l organizations to spread a false message of: mental anguish, inhumane detention conditions, medical mistreatment, abuse,” according to a briefing slide titled “Adversary within the camps.”

More than half of the 149 prisoners at Guantánamo have been cleared for release or transfer by the Bush and Obama administrations, and in the years since 9/11, news reports have shown that some of the men sent to Guantánamo had been sold to the U.S. for bounties, and had never set foot on a battlefield. Last year, scores of detainees launched a hunger strike to protest against their continued detention without trial or charge in a move that attracted worldwide headlines."

"Palestinian municipal elections were supposed to be held last week. Instead, they were canceled. A statement released by the Palestinian Authority claimed the cancellation was "in order to pave the way for a successful end to the siege on Gaza and for continued efforts at unity" between Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, and the government in the West Bank.

The cancellation of this election was an unjustified, unlawful, and unacceptable act. It damages democratic rights and makes a mockery of the interests of the Palestinian people.

But this is far more than an internal Palestinian issue. The only lasting peace between Isr…